Tiger by the Tail (8 page)

There was a surprised splutter, then a hideous gurgling sound interspersed with muted, choking noises as she was forced to ingest liquid instead of air. Mike gave it a ten-count, then stopped, watching as she coughed and choked. There was a gagging sound, and water sprayed out through the cloth as she tried to clear her lungs. More Cantonese could be heard through her sobs.

“What do you want? Why are you doing this to me?” Vanner translated in an emotionless tone. “Other stuff nonessential. Not enjoying this, boss.”

“Got it.” Mike gave her a few seconds to catch her breath, then bent down to her ear again.

“All you have to do is answer my questions. Why are you here? Why did the pirate take you with him?”

“I—I don’t know—I’m telling you, I’m just a whore—”

“Wrong answer.” Mike secured the cloth and began pouring again. This time he got to eight before she choked, spluttered, then started to convulse.

“She’s vomiting! Turn her!”

The two Keldara lifted the chair, and Mike moved the table away and cleared the cloth so they could flip her face-down. A thin stream of bile drooled from her mouth, and she gasped for air, hanging by her restraints from the chair, her wet hair hanging in front of her face.

Mike let her go until she had calmed down, and was quietly sobbing.

“Second part,” Mike told Vanner. His intel chief displayed more phonetic Cantonese on his laptop as MIke squatted down. He pushed the curtain of hair aside to look into her face.

“That is awful, isn’t it? All that water . . . it feels like you are about to drown. All you have to do to make it stop is tell me what you are doing here, and it will, I promise. Just answer my questions, and this will all end.”

Her teeth chattering, the woman gasped out a short, choppy reply.

“I don’t know what you want,” Vanner translated. “Please stop . . .”

“I am afraid we cannot do that.” Mike stood and motioned for the Keldara to set her back on the table. “How’s her oxygen level?” He asked.

“Steady at ninety-three percent,” the medic replied.

“Let’s go again.” The cloth was placed over her face, which was a bit harder this time, as she tried to whip her head back and forth until Adams restrained her. In return, Mike gave her a fifteen-count of water this time. When he let up, her convulsions were much harder, her arms and legs straining against her restraints as she flopped on the chair.

“Shit, she’s defibrillating! Let her go, boys.”

“No heartbeat detected . . .”
the box chimed in slightly Swedish-accented English.
“Charging . . . Stand clear . . . Defibrillating . . .”

The woman’s back arched as the current shot through her, then she collapsed back on the chair, screaming as she expelled the liquid from her lungs.

“—ENGLISH! I SPEAK ENGLISH! JUST STOP, PLEASE!”

Mike nodded to Vanner and the others.

“See how easy that was?” He wiped her face off. “So, you’ve understood everything we’ve been saying?”

“Yes . . . I learned at nun school . . . in Pengmankat.”

“If you don’t want more, tell me what I want to know.”

“I do not know what is in the box, I swear!” the girl gasped, clearly trying not to cry. “Yeung Tony was told about it from a man he met in Phuket. The man told him it was being smuggled north, and if he could get his hands on it, the man would pay well, more money than Tony had ever seen. Tony found out what ship it was on and sent his men to grab it. They did, and he was about to contact his buyer when you people showed up and started killing everybody.”

“And you are absolutely sure you do not know what’s inside the box?” Mike casually raised the canteen over her head again.

“NO! No, please, I swear!”

“Who’s the buyer?” Mike asked then raised the canteen again as she paused.

“A dealer named Arun Than. Yeung was to sail to Hong Kong once he had the box, and Than would contact him to set up a meeting.”

Mike had been checking Vanner’s read of the woman’s story, and the Marine gave him a thumbs-up.

“All right, we’re going to keep you with us for the next few days. You’ll be in a cabin, but be under guard the entire time, so don’t try anything stupid, or else what these guys’ll do to you will make all this seem like child’s play.”

Mike was mostly bluffing—as far as he knew, the Keldara didn’t go in much for torture. Vil and Danes, however, were both very solid, muscular examples of the Keldara male, and looked menacing enough that he was pretty sure she wouldn’t try anything.

“Take her below and let her get cleaned up.” The two warriors escorted the staggering woman below deck, half-supporting her with one hand on each arm.

“You’re sure that stress detector program is on the level?” Mike asked.

“Well, there’s a plus or minus three percent variance,” Vanner said with a shrug. “But overall, it’s been right ninety plus percent of the time.”

“Even on non-English speakers?”

“I’ve been testing it on the Keldara over the past few weeks,” Vanner said. “The guys are pretty bad at lying—they show up right away. The girls, of course, are much more skilled, and Katya is damn near an artist. Whatever Jay has been teaching her, it’s working.”

“That’s a scary thought,” Mike mused. “What’s that saying about the female of the species being more deadly than the male?”

“Ah, Kipling. Well, I don’t know about more deadly, but certainly more skilled at deception. Although, so is Jay, so it’s not clear it is gender-based.”

Mike thought of the sociopathic rage Katya concealed under her beautiful face, just waiting to strike at the right target with her deadly fingernails. He thought of Creata calmly standing over the dead Armenian, a smoking pistol in her hand. He thought about the rumor he had heard of one of the Mothers during the battle against the Chechens, and what she had done with an enemy soldier’s heart. He had never learned whether there was any truth to that rumor, mainly because he never wanted to know if it
was
true.

“Don’t ever underestimate a woman, Keldara or otherwise, on her lethalness—trust me, you’ll lose every time.”

“I am married to Greznya, sir,” Vanner replied.

“Point,” Mike said. His radio beeped. “Mal, this is Locki. I have opened the box.”

Mike exchanged a glance with Vanner.

“I thought she said it would take some time.”

His intel chief shrugged. “I’ve found that when Creata puts her mind to something, she’s a lot like Scotty on
Star Trek
—always under-promising and over-delivering.”

* * *

A minute later, they both stood in one of the first level salons. Adams and Creata were also there, gathered around the box.

“I thought you said that opening the box might be tough, Creata?” Mike asked.

“I thought so, too. But once I understood the basic concept, it went faster than I’d expected. There are no other secondary locks or traps involved.” She stepped back. “As a prize of battle, the honor of opening it is yours, Kildar.”

“Thanks, I think.” Visions of poison gas or a simple explosive booby trap went through his mind, but Mike reached for the lid and lifted it.

The box was cleverly hinged along the back, with the seam between the top and bottom hidden underneath a ridge of metal, which was why it had escaped detection. The inside was completely filled with a single piece of dark gray packing foam. Mike reached for it and removed it, revealing—

“Computer boards?” he looked up at Vanner. “
This
is their treasure?”

Vanner leaned down to examine them, then looked up at the Kildar.

“If these are what I
think
they are, they’re just about priceless. We need to set up a Skype call with Doctor Arensky.”

CHAPTER FIVE

As days go
, Colonel Bob Pierson thought,
I’ve had worse.

The Office of Special Operations Liaison, or OSOL, handled all sensitive special operations outside the United States. They assisted operator teams that needed intel, a favor, or that had just gotten into a jam they couldn’t handle on their own. OSOL also briefed the higher-ups on what was going down when necessary, then relayed new orders to the operator or team in the field. It was staffed twenty-four/seven by higher echelon officers, and could perform just about any service an operator needed done ASAP or sooner.

Pierson’s shift had been remarkably quiet; so much so that he thought he might be able to get out at what was approximately a normal shift-end time. He also knew the approximate odds of that happening, as it was an old maxim in intel analysis:
the longer things remain quiet, the bigger the shit storm that’s coming down—

And just like that, the secure phone rang. With a resigned exhalation, Bob picked up the receiver, immediately shifting from slightly tired officer to perfect, precise, professional soldier.

“Office of Special Operations Liaison, U.S. Army Colonel Robert Pierson speaking, how may I help you?”

“Go scramble,” a familiar voice on the other end said.

Bob did so and leaned back in his chair. He knew the caller on the other end well, and also knew that his plans for a quiet, uneventful evening had been shit-canned the moment he’d picked up.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation, Mike?”

“Yes, and here in the land of tomorrow it’s eighty-nine degrees and sunny. How are things in your neck of the woods?”

“Well, they had been quiet until you called. Otherwise it’s about forty-five degrees and raining salamanders. I’m sure this isn’t a social call, however.”

With Mike, it never was. Bob had first “met” him during the Syria op, and had been Mike’s handler on the D.C. end of things ever since.

“Is it ever?” Mike briefly outlined what he and his Keldara had run into, including the loot they’d picked up from their captives.

Bob blinked twice.

“Is Vanner absolutely sure about the cargo?”

“We checked with Doctor Death. They’re the real deal. My question is, what the hell am I supposed to do with them?”

“That is a good one. Just sit tight and let me inform some people who need to know right now. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“Works. I’ll be around.”

“Okay. I’ll be in touch the second I know what The Man wants done.”

“You’re taking this that high?”

“Not my call. But somehow I have a feeling that I’ll be visiting a certain big white house before the night is over.”

“Good luck. Jenkins out.”

Bob hit the disconnect button, then dialed a number that went straight to the National Military Command Center.

“This is Colonel Pierson in OSOL. We have a situation.”

* * *

Two and a half hours later, the President, dressed in an immaculate tuxedo, held up a hand.

“Wait a minute, let me get this straight. Computer chips that run a nuclear power plant were found in the possession of ocean pirates off Singapore?”

“Yes, sir. As improbable as it sounds, that is the situation in a nutshell,” Pierson said. “However, to clarify, they are not simply computer chips, but the motherboards that are the brains, if you will, of a nuclear reactor.”

The President rubbed his chin.

“Bob, I know Mike’s intel is on the level. If he says he’s got ’em, then he’s got ’em. But frankly, this sounds like the opening of a James Bond film.”

The rest of the cabinet secretaries and chiefs of staff all smiled or chuckled politely, then their expressions grew serious to match the President’s.

“Do we have any intel on a missing shipment?” he asked.

“Nothing has come across my desk in the past two weeks regarding missing or stolen nuclear reactor operation boards,” the head of the NSA said. “Whoever lost these is keeping it very quiet.”

“Before we get any deeper into this, Mr. President, are we waiting on the NRC chair, or are they not going to be involved in this?” the DCIA asked.

The President exchanged a glance with his secretary of defense.

“Let’s just say they have enough on their plate monitoring current nuclear activity in the U.S., never mind the rest of the world. Post-Fukishima, they’re far too busy implementing the new safety protocols mandated for all reactors around the nation to be involved with something like this.”

The President activated a large monitor on the wall, which showed a picture of the boards in their formerly secure case. The image had been sent as part of a heavily encrypted transmission from the
Big Fish
.

“What do we know about the shipment itself?”

All heads turned to the secretary of the Department of Energy. He turned to his deputy secretary, who cleared her throat.

“Preliminary analysis has determined that the chips are of Chinese manufacture. Working with the CIA, we have traced them to the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation out of Shanghai.”

“There’s a familiar name,” NSA snorted. “They’ll manufacture anything to turn a buck.”

“Given China’s very strong interest in becoming a world leader in generating nuclear power, we—” the deputy secretary nodded at the CIA director, “—found it odd that the company would be exporting chips when there are dozens of planned pressurized water reactors either on the drawing board or in early construction stages in China itself. It stands to reason that the company would be ordered to produce chips for its own country’s needs first, and then sell to other nations only after the internal market was satisfied.”

The CIA director took up the narrative. “Therefore, we figure that the chips were being sold on the black market by someone high up in the Chinese government, perhaps a high-ranking military officer. That would explain the lack of official markings on the box, as well as its integral high security.”

“Not that high, if one of the Keldara could open it,” the secretary of defense muttered.

“Apparently you weren’t in the loop on their Italian job,” the DNSA said, shaking his head.

“However, the transport information was apparently leaked, and the illegal shipment was hijacked.”

“Where were the chips supposed to be heading?” the President asked.

“At this point, we have no idea,” DCIA replied. “Even with the chip manufacturing programs throughout Southeast Asia, there’s no shortage of countries that might want these. My geeks tell me the architecture is a nightmare. Pakistan, India, Indonesia, North Korea, and even such faraway places as Mongolia, Kazakhstan, or Iran, any of them could be a potential buyer. The bottom line is that someone high-up in China is providing vital nuclear reactor technology on the black market to whoever’s got the cash to pay for it.” The director let his gaze play around the room. “I don’t think we need to go into the potential problem this could lead to regarding refining weapons-grade nuclear waste into useable material for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.”